Geis of the Gargoyle (31 page)

So either Hiatus' seduction was complete, or it had halted for some reason.
 
Hanna was returning to animation.
 
And what should he do now?

He decided that it would be safer to take the initiative than to let her take it.
 
"Ah, you are awake," he said warmly.
 
"I was glad to see you sleep so well, after everything you did yesterday.
 
Now we can go to breakfast."

Hanna seemed a trifle out of sorts.
 
"Yes, of course," she said after a moment.
 
She got out of bed, spreading her bare legs in his direction.
 
When Gary politely averted his gaze, she made a little exclamation of modesty.
 
"Oh! I am inadvertently indecent! Thank you for not looking." Panties appeared (he saw them by peripheral vision), and then a prim day dress formed around her.

They stepped out into the hall.
 
Hiatus was already there, looking uncomfortable.
 
"What's the matter?" Gary asked.

Hiatus shook his head.
 
"If she had only been real, I would have done it," he muttered.
 
"But I know the real Desiree would never be like that.
 
Not without marriage."

But before they could join the others and go down for another presumably sumptuous meal, there was'an odd wavering in the scene.
 
"Oops," Hanna said.
 
"A storm is coming."

Mentia appeared.
 
"Something strange just-oh, I see you noticed."

"Hanna says a storm is coming," Gary told her.

Hiatus shrugged.
 
"A storm shouldn't bother a stone edifice much."

"A madness storm," Hanna clarified.
 
"We shall have to go into defensive mode.
 
Hurry; we can't stay in the building." She led the way down the stairs almost at a run.

"I'll wake Iris and Surprise," Mentia said, popping out.

Gary and Hiatus followed Hanna out of the palace.
 
There was the ogre tromping up.
 
"The others will be out in a moment," Hanna told him.
 
"You can start now."

The ogre went to the outer wall of the castle and pounded a fist against a stone panel.
 
The stone shook with the impact, and the whole palace shuddered.
 
There were clicking sounds throughout.

Iris and Surprise emerged, following a bouncing ball.
 
The ball took one last bounce, then sprouted arms and legs.
 
In a moment a body filled in.
 
"Everyone's out except Desi," Mentia announced.

Then Desi appeared.
 
"I am here," she said.

Gary glanced covertly at Hanna.
 
She was standing still, with no expression.
 
She was, as Mentia had pointed out, on autopilot.
 
There was only one presence, with alternating presentations.

He looked at the real people.
 
Iris seemed understandably harried, but the child was unusually quiet.
 
Probably the realization of the limit of her talent still depressed her.
 
She had thought she could do anything, without limit, and now knew that she could do anything only once.
 
Perhaps Gary had accomplished his tutoring with that discovery, and Surprise was now ready to go home.
 
Once they found the philter.

The ogre pulled at the overhanging section of the palace roof.
 
The roof separated, with widening cracks running up to the peak and radiating down from there.
 
Then the ogre pushed up on the overhang, and the rest of the roof section hinged down toward the ground, the chamber beneath it collapsing into flatness.
 
The other palace sections shut down similarly.
 
They had thought that it would require a pair of ogres to fold these stones, but perhaps this was an especially strong one.
 
Or one ogre sufficed for a palace that was in large part illusion.

Gary glanced again at the illusion maidens, without being obvious, and saw that now both were unmoving.
 
The animation was being focused on the ogre and the palace.
 
So this spectacle, while impressive, was not as extensive as it looked-and of course most of the scene was illusion anyway.

Hanna came back to life.
 
"We must go to the center circle," she said.
 
'There we will be safe."

They followed her away from the folding palace, along an avenue lined by large stone buildings being similarly compacted.
 
The whole vast city was being reduced to a series of folded stones.
 
But Gary saw that all the other ogres working on other buildings followed exactly the pattern of the ogre working on the palace; they were in lockstep, or perhaps lock image.
 
More autopiloting.
 
And they worked only when Hanna was walking in a straight line, neither speaking nor gesturing.

So the illusion had limits, as Mentia had explained.
 
But who was directing it? For what purpose? This had started out as Iris' image of the ancient city, based on Gary's reading of the rock pictures.
 
Now another party was contributing.
 
But why? And what danger might there be?

Meanwhile signs of the coming storm were growing.
 
Winds were tugging at distant pennants, and dust was stirring into clouds, obscuring the more distant buildings.
 
There was a faint keening, getting louder.
 
The sky was overcast and turning troubled.

In the center of the city was a clear region, and in the center of that was a round pool of clear water.
 
Hanna relaxed.
 
"We shall be safe from the storm here," she said.

"Howso?" Mentia asked.
 
"The folded buildings may be able to withstand severe battering, but this is exposed."

"The battering is only partly physical," Desi said.
 
"It is the madness that makes them vulnerable.
 
See." She gestured, and they saw that one of the buildings had been missed.
 
Either there weren't enough ogres for them all, or each ogre had several buildings to do and this one hadn't been done yet.

The dusty wind swirled around the building-and the structure changed.
 
Its stone turned translucent, and faintly pink.
 
When a strong gust of wind pushed against it, the building gave way like a mound of gelatin.

"The madness changes things," Hanna said.
 
"That's why we can't depend on the firmness of stone.
 
The structure will revert to stone after the storm passes, but it may be deformed into some other shape, if it remains intact."

"And it may not be much fun for the people in that building," Iris said, wincing.

"True," Desi said.
 
"They may lose their lives, or their sanity, in which case they will not return to normal after the storm."

"That still doesn't explain why it should be any better here," Iris said.

"This inner circle is safe," Hanna said.
 
"Because the city of Hinge is so designed that the pattern of folded buildings generates a madness-free zone here.
 
Magic within the circle is normal or below normal, depending on the strength of the storm."

"Then why not simply live in the circle?" Hiatus asked.
 
"Because when there is no storm, the level of magic within the circle is very low," Desi said.
 
"Talents don't work.
 
Ogres lose their strength.
 
Crossbreeds get sick as their bodies try to separate into the components of their ancestry.
 
Magic plants wilt or even die."

"In short, it's like Mundania," Mentia said.
 
"A drear place of no magic."

"Yes," Hanna said.
 
"And demons can't function at all." Mentia winced.
 
It was impressive: her entire face drew back, folding inward, so that her nose inverted and dragged her eyes and mouth along after it.
 
"I won't stay here after the storm is gone," she said from the other side of her head.

"But if you go out during the storm," Desi said, "you will be overloaded with magic, and perhaps explode into a cloud of madness."

Gary looked around.
 
"So this is why the city is hinged.
 
So it can be shut down during madness storms, and readily restored after they pass."

"Yes," Hanna agreed.
 
"We suffer very few losses during the storms, and these can be repaired.
 
So we are able to work well at all other times.
 
Stone Hinge protects us both with and without the madness."

"This is very clever," Iris said appreciatively.

"Do the individual buildings have similar effect?" Gary asked.
 
"That is, reducing the madness?"

"Yes," Desi said.
 
"They ease the effect of the ambient background madness.
 
But their effect is limited.
 
They can't withstand a storm when not folded down."

Iris glanced sharply at him.
 
"How did you guess that?"

"I noticed that Mentia was reverting to normal.
 
When I talked with her this morning, her eyes traveled around her face, and just now her face reversed itself.
 
That's part of her regular craziness; she does such things without noticing.
 
But when the madness is around us, she usually indulges in no such foolishness, not even unconsciously."

Hiatus nodded appreciatively.
 
"Gary, you are smarter than the average-"

"The average young human man," Iris finished.
 
She might have been a bit crazy in the madness, but was back to her sensible self here, as she had been in the palace.
 
Hiatus had reverted to his somewhat vacant innocence, so had forgotten that they were trying not to speak of Gary's true nature.

"Isn't the average young man interested in shapely young women?" Hanna inquired.

"Yes, but sometimes a bit shy," Mentia said, covering for him much as Iris had.
 
"Would you believe that there are some who could see a maiden in the altogether and not immediately think of the stork?"

"Yes," Iris said, somewhat sourly.

"I'm thirsty," Surprise said.
 
She left Iris and ran to the pool.
 
She was back to her normal impetuosity.
 
Gary had thought that her good behavior stemmed from her discovery of the limit of her talent, but now he realized that the surrounding madness could also have accounted for it.

"Wait, dear!" Iris cried, pursuing her.
 
"We don't know what kind of water that is.
 
It might be enchanted, or poison."

"Actually it's a love spring," Desi said.

"A love spring!" Iris screeched.
 
She made a grab for the child, but was too late; Surprise had already plopped down beside the pool and put her face to the water.

"But it's the city supply," Hiatus said.
 
"So it must be pure."

Gary touched a finger to the water.
 
"Yes, this is pure," he agreed, excited.

Hanna looked sharply at him.
 
"How do you know?" Gary knew better than to give away his true nature.
 
"I have a talent for reading water," he said.
 
"I know when it is pure.
 
This is exceptionally so."

Surprise lifted her face.
 
"Yes, it's scrumshus, for water." Hiatus stared at Hanna.
 
"You were having a little fun with us, not telling us that this water is good."